Portal for SMEs to bid for Government contracts

Millions of small businesses nationwide will soon have direct access to local and central government business opportunities, through a new national web portal announced by the Small Business Service (SBS) and Office of Government Commerce (OGC).

Tender

The SBS launched the open competitive tendering process for the provision of the national web portal service that, it claims, will make it much easier for businesses and government buyers to do business.

The aim is that the portal service will be 'so easy to use that it becomes the main gateway to government sub-OJEU opportunities.

The portal will be available for all businesses, but the SBS and OGC believe it will quickly become popular with the four million small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) operating in the UK, which make up around 99 per cent of all UK companies.

UKTECH contribution

The planned launch of the national portal follows one of the recommendations of the 2003 Better Regulation Task Force/Small Business Council report on reducing barriers facing any business wishing to become involved in public procurement.

Members of UKTECH's network were invited to submit case studies of any incidences where freelancers have tried to bid for local or central Government contracts, as part of the Better Regulation Task Force report for Government about the issue of small and medium size businesses bidding for public tenders.

Public Procurement – any experiences? - March 2003

In May 2003, the Task Force reported with 11 recommendations to level the playing field for smaller companies in public tendering.

SMEs: Government told to put money where mouth is?

Portal

The new portal will build upon lessons that the OGC and SBS learned from the SME procurement pilots in the West Midlands and Haringey, and is aimed at easing the process of bidding for potential public tender opportunities whilst allowing public sector buyers to get ready access to a very broad range of potential suppliers.

OGC will also offer suppliers access to simplified pre-qualification documentation, develop 'buyer awareness' training for government purchasers and help the SBS in the development of training and advice.

Small businesses

Chief Secretary to the Treasury Paul Boateng said: "I am delighted that the potential advantages identified by the West Midlands and Haringey pilots have contributed to the process of breaking down the barriers facing SMEs when trying to do business with government. The practical help and advice that the pilots developed can now be rolled out nationally, proving that the pilots were not just a one-off project, but part of government's continued commitment to helping SMEs to access the public sector marketplace."

Small Business and Enterprise Minister Nigel Griffiths said: "I want to make sure that small firms of all types have access to a slice of the public sector procurement cake. By developing a national portal to bring together buyers and sellers we can cut the time and effort that small firms spend hunting for contracts while increasing the options available to public sector buyers, helping to ensure better value for money for the taxpayer."

Pilots

The West Midlands pilot trialled a number of initiatives to help small local businesses:

• A simple web portal was established for government buyers to advertise low value contracts, making opportunities more accessible to SMEs.
  
• Training workshops on how to put a tender together and how to find opportunities were delivered free of charge to SMEs. To support this, training on the benefits of using SMEs was given to government buyers. Over 300 of the SME and buyer training places were filled during the pilots.
  
• A simplified tender document was tested by several government departments in the West Midlands area, which successfully reduced the bureaucracy involved in the tender process. A standard pre-tender document has now been developed for use with the national portal.
  
• The project worked with 'prime contractors' in the area to encourage them to open up their supply chains to SMEs. Ten large suppliers in the region are now primed to open up sub-contract opportunities in the supply chain.

Tender details

SBS has issued the invitation to service providers by way of a notice in the Official Journal of the European Union (OJEU) in line with European procurement law under reference number: 04/S 250-215936/EN.

Details are available here